Why I Choose to Write in My Personal Space Instead of Medium?
But I think about the empty side of the glass. Platforms work with algorithms, which choose what post/author should be seen and read by whom. I know search engines work in similar ways for personal blogs, but here is the second reason: platforms can delete content whenever they want.
I enjoy writing, and my relationship with it goes back six years when I launched my first blog. It was a personal blog, and at the time, I was 17-18 years old, dealing with depression and feeling alone.
I found some friends online, which made me happy. To cut a long story short: my first blog was on an Iranian blogging platform called blog.ir, and after two years, I moved to blogger.com. Six months later, I moved to my own personal space, my domain (aminzm.com), and I used WordPress.
Later on, I bought a domain (Dissolve.blog) because the name of my blog was "dissolve," and I migrated all my posts to it. I then migrated from WordPress to Ghost.
One day, I asked myself, "Why don't I write about my career?" and created a new blog at aminzamani.ir. This blog is about programming, mathematics, and other subjects that I didn't cover in "dissolve."
Now, I've decided to create an English blog too, to make more friends around the world.
But why do I choose to publish my content on a personal space? Why did I migrate from blogger.com to aminzm.com in the first place?
Decentralized World is the Future
We have a similar startup to Medium in Iran called Virgool.io, and I have the same perspective about them for all of my blogs.
There are some pros to publishing on these platforms:
- They are free, and you can quickly set up your profile.
- Posts on Medium receive more views. If you decide to write on this platform, you will already have an audience.
But I think about the empty side of the glass. Platforms work with algorithms, which choose what post/author should be seen and read by whom. I know search engines work in similar ways for personal blogs, but here is the second reason: platforms can delete content whenever they want. Let's take a look at some parts of Medium's terms:
We may stop providing the Services or any of its features within our sole discretion. We also retain the right to create limits on use and storage and may remove or limit content distribution on the Services.
Termination You’re free to stop using our Services at any time. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Services with or without notice.
I believe we should respect our freedom. So, as a fan of decentralization, I vote for personal spaces with our own rules.
But can we migrate to personal spaces with no money? I think we can. For this blog, I only paid for the domain and nothing else. I will talk about it in the next post.
P.S: Although I prefer personal spaces, I cannot ignore the readership Medium provides for writers. Therefore, I may publish some of my posts on Medium too.